Specifically wondering why surrogate’s body doesn’t attack the zygote/fetus as if it’s a foreign body.
Of course as I’ve typed this out I’m wondering if it’s the same reason babies aren’t attacked in the womb in any other situation, the placenta?
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>Of course as I’ve typed this out I’m wondering if it’s the same reason babies aren’t attacked in the womb in any other situation, the placenta?
Spot on. The unborn child is *always* foreign, even in a perfectly normal pregnancy. The reason it’s not a problem most of the time is that the placenta is a very restrictive barrier that only tiny molecules (notably, oxygen) can naturally diffuse across. Cells and the vast majority of molecules that make up the maternal immune system don’t get to cross.
Antibodies of the IgG isotype do get shuttled across, and that can be problematic when, following a bleed that allows blood contact between mother and child, the mother gets sensitized against the child’s blood group antigens (notably RhD) or HLA.
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